


You and I are kinda like

by Arokel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, I'm not sorry, M/M, Steve Rogers practices good consent etiquette, remember when all those strangers kissing/hugging/hitting/undressing each other videos were a thing?, well now you do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4032142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arokel/pseuds/Arokel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe he’s a little nervous. But money is money, and if all he’s gotta do is kiss someone for a shitty internet parody video, then why the hell not? He’dve gone in for the ‘homophobes hugging gay people’ one too if that weren’t just a tiny bit beneath his dignity.</p><p>Jeez, this is cliche.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I are kinda like

There are a lot of fucking people in this room. Not in like a sex way, but in a using-swears-as-hyperbole-because-no-one-raised-me-right way. And Bucky swears so often that he tends to forget how it might sound to other people, hence the weird phrasing there. Even though that particular phrasing never left his head. Shit.

Maybe he’s a little nervous. But money is money, and if all he’s gotta do is kiss someone for a shitty internet parody video, then why the hell not? He’dve gone in for the ‘homophobes hugging gay people’ one too if that weren’t just a tiny bit beneath his dignity. And Nat knew some art student who was looking for volunteers for her weird performance art thesis or however art majors go through college, and she was offering a hundred dollars for a thirty second kiss, so. Anyone would have taken her up on it.

By the looks of it, a lot of people (not fucking people, thank you very much) felt the same way, which is fine. They’re capping it at forty people, but Bucky got here early and he knows he’d be picked anyway. Some of the people here are, no offense, not exactly movie material. Bucky’s leagues more attractive than most of the people in this room, and the arm will check off the ‘disabled’ box on their diversity bingo card – though that might mean they’ll want him to take his gloves off; shit.

It’s not that he’s ashamed; of course not. The new arm works just as well as his real one, and he lost the real one doing good things, whether or not the fight was a good fight. Bucky’s not the type to write angry blog posts about American Sniper, but he’d have some things to take issue with if he was. But he digresses.

Thinking about his injury in a room full of civilians is never a recipe for success, so Bucky focuses instead on cataloging which of the strangers around him he’d be most okay with kissing. All of them, he supposes, since he’s getting paid and all. But there are a fair number of good-looking people, and Bucky supposes it might not be such a hardship. He’s so immersed in trying to decide whether the mild-mannered looking guy in the glasses slumped against the wall across from him is really as boring as he looks or if he’d turn into a monster in bed that the guy next to Bucky has to poke him to get his attention – and holy fuck, what is Tony Stark doing here? It can’t be the money; Stark’s loaded, so it’s probably just another weird playboy billionaire genius thing. Whatever.

Stark pokes him again, eyebrows raised. “You gonna go with the lady or what, Robocop?” And okay, fuck that guy. So what if it’s his dad’s technology? This kid’s a douche. “If you’ve chickened out, I’ll gladly take your place.” Stark leers. “Or offer to go with you to help with the nerves.”

Bucky manages a sort of half grimace and ducks out of the way of Stark’s painfully-telegraphed arm stroke. “I think I need the money more than you do, pal,” he mutters (smooth, Buck, great social skills; Dr. Hill will be so proud), and hurries towards the woman standing in the doorway with a clipboard – Nat’s friend? – shooting a hopeful glance at ‘glasses-and-button-up-but-probably-secretly-a-sexy-beast’ on his way over. Said probable sexy beast remains looking steadfastly at the floor.

“James?” The woman says, and her tone, combined with the earlier poking, are cluing him in to the fact that she’s probably already called his name at least twice. She looks frazzled, but she also kind of looks like the kind of person who always looks frazzled. That sentence made a lot more sense in Bucky’s head.

“Uh, yeah, that’s me,” Bucky says. He fights the urge to fiddle with his sleeve, because his gloves don’t go up very far and he doesn’t think he can explain away the metal arm as a bracelet or something if she asks. If she doesn’t already know. “I’m Nat’s friend.”

“I know,” the woman says, before turning heel and leading him into the next room. This one’s set up like an actual studio – or at least the way studios look in behind-the-scenes fashion shoot photos – with huge covered lights and a big white wall and people in black clothes and headseats scurrying around muttering under their breaths. Bucky’s not quite sure why they need so many crew guys for what’s going to be a single-camera, stationary shot, but maybe it’s just to give the theatre majors something to do. “You’re going to need to take your glove off for the film.”

Bucky shrinks back a little. “I can’t – I mean, you know what’s under it, right?”

“I’ve seen you at parties with no shirt on, so yes, I know what’s under it.” And that’s not fair, because it was only the one party, and that was right after he got back and he thought he could just fit back into his old life, but that’s beside the point. “It’ll help normalize StarkTech in the media,” she continues. Bucky briefly considers gagging. He’d told Stark when he signed up for this experimental prosthesis that he wouldn’t be a poster boy.

He’s about to tell her the same thing when his kissing partner walks into the room, escorted by a pretty brunette who Bucky recognizes as maybe having dated that blonde Norwegian guy at some point, and wow. The guy’s so small it’s no wonder Bucky missed him in his once-over of the room, but it’s a shame he did. All thoughts of freak-in-the-sheets guy are gone, because this guy is easily the most attractive person in this whole project aside from Bucky. Maybe even including Bucky.

If Bucky didn’t know this shoot was only open to students, he’d have assumed the guy was underage. He’s got to have a BMI of like, five - and yeah, Nat, the whole BMI metric’s messed up, we get it. Although this guy kind of looks like he’d sign a petition to the AMA to restructure the whole system, so maybe Bucky goes in for that sort of person after all. Go figure.

The guy – Bucky has to stop himself from thinking of him as a kid, because infantilizing him in the same breath as sexualizing him is pretty creepy and you don’t hang around Nat for four years without picking up some social awareness – is also like, the hipsteriest hipster Bucky has ever seen, but not in a pretentious way? He’s got the look down, skinny jeans and button-down (that he wears much better than the actually probably very boring guy in the waiting room) and big plastic-rimmed glasses, but the air of vague condescension Bucky tends to associate with the sort of person who dresses like that is missing. Instead, Bucky’s new jerkoff fantasy (shitfuck, objectification, fuck, why is being a good person so hard?) looks serious, like a ninety-year-old somehow stuffed into the body of a malnourished twenty-something. There’s a fire there too, a determination in the set of that surprisingly broad jaw that Bucky guesses is born from being picked on one too many times. Bucky knows how it goes.

Well. If taking his gloves off and doing the dog-and-pony show for a few minutes means he gets to kiss this guy, then there’s really no question of Bucky’s decision. He drags the left one off with his teeth, not missing the way his partner’s eyes linger on his mouth before catching on Bucky’s newly revealed left hand. Bucky shoves the gloves back towards Nat’s friend without taking his eyes off his partner. There’s a challenge in his posture, and he knows the other guy sees it, but Bucky wants to see what he’ll do.

He sticks his left hand out. Bucky stares uncomprehendingly for a second before the guy directs a pointed glance at the metal hand and Bucky realizes he’s angling for a handshake. With his left hand. Little bastard’s pretty forward. But it turns out to be just the right thing to do, because Bucky finds himself relaxing immediately now that he’s got the guy’s approval. “I’m Steve.”

“Steve,” Bucky repeats dumbly. “Nice name.” He’s aware that the camera is rolling and he’s done nothing so far but make a complete fool out of himself, but his brain has snagged on Steve’s easy acceptance of his arm and he’s having a hard time catching up. “Call me Bucky.”

Steve looks like he wants to ask, and even though Bucky hates his middle name, he thinks he’d tell Steve the story anyway, just to see if it would make him laugh. But they aren’t supposed to share personal details on camera, and anyway, Bucky’s probably imagining the connection between them. Steve’s probably just being polite.

“So how should we do this?” Bucky asks, watching Steve uncertainly. Steve seems completely unruffled by this whole situation, whereas Bucky, who prides himself on always keeping a calm exterior, is absolutely losing his shit. He is so out of his depth. He isn’t sure whether he should be charging more or paying them. “Just… go for it?”

“That’s not very romantic,” Steve says, mouth quirking, and his voice is so much deeper than Bucky had anticipated, holy shit. He wants to tell Steve just how romantic he can be, which is just so far beyond the boundary of what is appropriate to say to a stranger, even a stranger you’re about to make out with on camera for money.

Instead, Bucky huffs out a laugh. “Unless you believe in love at first sight, there aren’t a lot of ways this situation could be construed as romantic. But okay, Romeo. What do you want to do?”

Steve flushes red (and Bucky really wants to see it again under much more intimate circumstances, but right before kissing the guy is absolutely not the time to be having these thoughts) and scowls momentarily, but then he shrugs. “Just ease into it, I guess. How do you feel about me touching your arm?” Bucky throws him a startled look, and Steve just shrugs again and says, “consent is important.”

Steve and Nat would get along, Bucky thinks, but instead he says, “well, you’ve sure as hell got mine.” He hesitates for a moment. “I mean, yeah. You can touch it. But only if you want. I’ll understand if it’s not - ”

Steve shuts him up by grabbing the metal hand and twining their fingers together. Bucky startles a little because most people don’t touch his left arm anymore and the sensation is unexpected, and Steve shoots him a questioning look. Bucky shakes his head and squeezes Steve’s fingers to let him know it’s okay. “It’s fine,” Steve says. “It’s actually kind of sexy. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky whispers, because he can’t find the voice for anything louder. He really hopes they edit out the most embarrassing parts, but given everything that’s happened in the two minutes they’ve been filming, that’s still going to leave in a lot of embarrassment. He slides his free hand up Steve’s arm to tug lightly at his stupid hipster glasses and pulls them off gently when Steve nods. Then his hand is just hovering stupidly over Steve’s shoulder holding Steve’s glasses, so he drops it to his side.

Steve’s gaze is slightly unfocused, but he’s very clearly looking at Bucky’s lips. Bucky wants so badly to talk about this, because Steve’s right and consent is important, but Nat’s friend wants as little talking as possible about the kiss itself, so instead Bucky uses their joined hands to pull Steve towards him. Steve goes willingly, and Bucky tries to put all thoughts of how consensual it can really be out of his head and concentrate on the feel of Steve’s body heat against him instead.

“Ready for this?” he murmurs, and Steve’s eyes flash challengingly.

“Born ready, jerk.” And before Bucky can be offended, Steve’s got a hand on the back of his neck and is pulling him down into a kiss.

It’s awkward, because neither of them are really sure how far they’re supposed to go, or if there’s a certain angle they should be facing. Bucky’s operating on the assumption that the only rule is no tongue and everything else is fair game, so he tilts his head slightly and moves his lips cautiously against Steve’s.

It’s… nice.

Bucky’s metal fingers spasm for a second, and he gently untwines their fingers to raise his hand to cradle Steve’s jaw and deepen the kiss. Steve’s other hand comes up to wrap around Bucky’s waist and pull them closer. It’s driving Bucky a little crazy.

It occurs to him, as he’s smoothing his thumb over Steve’s cheekbone, that his metal hand is prominently displayed for the camera, but he can’t even bring himself to mind. Steve’s lips are warm and soft, and he fits so well slotted up against Bucky, even if Bucky’s neck is aching a little at having to lean down to kiss him. It’s still worth it. He tugs gently at Steve’s lower lip and revels in the small intake of breath he gets in response. The microphones won’t pick it up, which means that sound belongs to Bucky alone.

Steve breaks away a little, smiling. “This is so weird.”

Bucky feels himself smile in response. “My partners are usually more appreciative than that.”

“I guess you’ll just have to try harder, then,” Steve jokes, kissing him again.

It’s really fucking great.

Bucky was kind of worried, once he saw Steve, that it would turn really sexual and Bucky would end up making it awkward, but it’s just… fun. He wants to keep kissing Steve, but more than that, he wants to make Steve laugh again. Christ, he’s far gone.

Bucky’s pretty sure he could keep kissing Steve for hours, but the crick in his neck is telling him otherwise, so he pulls back, moving his hand from Steve’s face to rub at his tense muscles. Steve’s eyes flutter open and he looks apologetic as soon as he realizes what Bucky’s doing. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I should have stood on my toes or something – “

“Don’t be stupid,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. He carefully fits Steve’s glasses back onto his face, in a gesture that feels somehow more intimate than anything they’ve done so far. “I like it. It makes me feel tall.”

“What if I like feeling tall?”

Bucky deliberately rakes his eyes over Steve’s frame, and for once it’s entirely innocent, but Steve goes red anyway. “Good luck with that, pal.”

Steve gives an exaggerated pout. “It’s not very polite to kiss someone and then insult them.”

Bucky’s about to respond when Nat’s friend clears her throat, and he realizes the camera’s stopped rolling. “Alright, that’s good. Thanks for participating; I’ll campus mail you your checks.”

And then they’re walking back out of the room and Bucky’s not sure what to do, because he really wants to see Steve again but he’s not sure how to ask, because “hey, I know we’ve only known each other for five minutes and a minute of that was us making out, but I think we really connected in the other four” probably won’t cut it.

Instead, he says “do you want to maybe – I know we don’t really know each other, but we could… go out for coffee or something? You seem really cool and I just thought…” which is not a whole lot better.

Steve looks at him consideringly for a couple seconds before replying, “I don’t drink coffee.”

“Oh, um, okay, that’s –“

“But I wouldn’t say no to hot chocolate.” (He drinks hot chocolate, oh my god, that’s adorable.)

“Yeah! Okay, great, um – are you okay with Starbucks, or –“

Steve smiles at him, and it doesn’t make Bucky feel like less of an idiot, but it’s still nice. “Starbucks is fine. You doin’ okay there?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky mutters. “Punk.”

“Jerk.”

The minute they’re outside the building, Steve turns to him and says, “I know it’s not really acceptable to kiss on the first date, but we’ve already sorta reached that milestone, so… I’d like to kiss you again, if that’s okay?”

Bucky grins. “I was that good, huh?”

Steve grins back. “Don’t flatter yourself. I did half the work.”

“I guess I’ll have to prove myself again,” Bucky says, reeling Steve in, and this is good, he can do this. Talking with Steve is better without people watching.

Kissing him is, too.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to title this for like 15 minutes so whatever. You can find me on tumblr as [arokel](arokel.tumblr.com).


End file.
